screemcat
Recent works
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ALTENARIA by localdisasterisk, screemcat
Fandoms: Half-Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware (Web Series)
01 May 2024
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Summary
This story starts in many places, which is to say, it never began so much as it picked up.
It picked up in 1969 with the first run of Half-Life Comics’ ADVENTURES OF SUPER PUNCH-OUT! In 1980 with a grittier reboot where Punchout discovered he was a faulty clone from a long-defunct research facility, and that the same facility had been creating test-tube supersoldiers. In 1985, with a misprint introducing Dr. Professor as a deuteragonist, and the GMan as their shadowy past personified. In 1998, with a limited run about the GMan’s family: an adopted alien and her “dog.” In 1999, when the run was expanded and the teenaged Rush-Hour met the Mix Marksman. In 2007, with the introduction of HEV to the now-grown lineup. In 2011, with HEV retconned into a person wearing a power suit.
We’re picking up in 2020, with the latest Rush-Hour series: Altenaria. Named after a genus of mold sometimes called “black heart” when contaminating pomegranate fruits, it’s an opportunistic little pathogen that will damage any host plant it lands on.
(As far as titles go, it’s a little on the nose.)
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call this place a home by screemcat
Fandoms: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom, HLVRAI - Fandom
24 Jul 2021
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Summary
The game is over. Benrey is dead. Tommy, Gordon, Coomer, and Bubby now have the freedom to live however they please, even if they don’t understand why they’re still alive. Tommy is staying in his father’s isolated pocket dimension house, memories of the game never letting him forget he’s just an AI trying to live as a person, while mourning his losses: the code that guided him everywhere, his old life (whether it was real or not), and the friend he helped kill... but he’s fine. Everything’s fine, and everyone’s gonna be happy, eventually. And life can only get better from here as he leaves his past behind.
…Right?
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that’s here, that’s home, that’s us by screemcat
Fandoms: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
25 Mar 2021
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Summary
“I feel like, every time we do your idea for—” Darnold barely stops himself from saying “date night” and feels heat creep up under his collar. “For, when we hang out, we end up breaking several laws.” He sighs, scratching the back of his head, the thick rubber of his lab gloves unable to get traction on his tightly coiled hair. “Couldn’t we, I dunno, go to my place and order a pizza or something?”
“We don’t— It’s not that many laws. That we break. Not the important safety regulations! Just ones that... stop us from having fun.” Tommy grins at him over his shoulder, from where he’s on one knee in the brittle grass, and Darnold can already feel his resolve, what little he had in the first place, crumbling.
"C'mon, I'll pay," he says, a last-ditch effort. Tommy can hear the half-heartedness in his voice, and laughs low, under his breath. Darnold shakes his head, a mixture of resigned and fond, and walks up to stand by the man’s side, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans, worn soft from years of washing and rolled up to mid-shin.
Tommy and Darnold have a fun night out!